"Nor is he anti-government. "I have higher aspirations," said Schuller. After saving taxpayers a million or two, he says, he'll perhaps run for the Assembly and look to further cut frivolities. When tea partiers seek to cut unnecessary government, it doesn't mean they oppose all government.

This is what makes Schuller an example, as much as anyone can be exemplary of the decentralized movement: He's seeking power to restrain it. He's engaging with government to reform it, to restore it to its place in this age where it sprawls its vast and swelling bulk across three seats and half of the dinner table.

It's not as if the treasurer's office, at $6 million a year, is a great part of Wisconsin's $2 billion structural deficit. But if we can't stanch so pointless a leak, we'll deserve to sink. Wasted dimes add up to squandered dollars, which is just what the tea partiers are saying.

Whether or not he persuades people to close the office, Schuller says, he'll serve only one term. Fair enough, and you might say the same of the tea party. Winning next week only would only start the test of its proposition that people can assume government's power and money only to set them aside. For the sake of our country's solvency, I hope they're right."